Chelsea After Dark
by MillyVeil
Summary: The Shield comm is still in Natasha's ear but the airwaves have gone silent. There's no reason for that this close to such a big incident, and it tells her she's being deliberately kept out of the loop. Which in turn tells her they're coming for Clint. (Set immediately after The Avengers)


They're all too tired to exchange more than the occasional word as they sit in the half-wrecked shawarma place Stark had insisted they go to. Natasha chews mechanically, eating not because she's hungry but because she knows Clint would much rather be somewhere else, but predictably he had agreed to come along when she had announced she needed food. Making things about her has always been a fairly reliable way to make him do things he wouldn't necessary do for himself.

The Shield comm is still in her ear, and Natasha has been listening absently to the chatter while eating, just to have something to focus on other than the aches and pains in her body. It's been a hard day. A demi-god has been defeated, a thermonuclear missile aimed for Midtown has been neutralized, and an army of alien beasts and warriors has been taken out. Not to mention that Clint had done his very best to kill her on that catwalk.

Only, it hadn't really been Clint who had fought her so fiercely and so eerily silent up there, had it? It had been the man he would have been without his principles, his sense of loyalty and his history. That man on the catwalk had been dangerous, had been the perfect killer, the sharpest blade in Loki's army of thralls. She's grateful she was the one who reached him first, because she's fairly certain most other people on the helicarrier would have taken him out from a distance with a head shot. If someone has to take him out, it should be her. And that had been a very real prospect. Luckily she had eventually come out on top and had neutralized him with absolutely no compunction.

She's almost through her meal as she suddenly realizes that there's been no chatter on the comms for a while. She casually puts her elbow on the table and leans her cheek against her hand, not quite having to feign the exhaustion that pushes down on her. The position allows her to discretely scroll through the operational frequencies without being too obvious about it. Nothing. Natasha takes a last bite of her food and puts it down. There's no way the airwaves should be silent this soon after something so big, and that tells her she's being deliberately kept out of the loop.

Which in turn tells her they're coming for Clint.

She gets to her feet and pats Clint on the leg he's got propped up on her chair. "Gentlemen," she says to the dusty, dirty gang seated around the table. "It's been fun. Let's never do this again."

"Hey, you two can crash at my place tonight. It's okay, I cleared it with my mom." Stark sounds as tired as he looks, but Natasha gives him points for trying to inject a little levity into the situation.

"We'll be in touch," she says in lieu of an answer and steers Clint out of the restaurant.

She appropriates a surplus army jacket for Clint from a second hand store down the street and a coat for herself. It's not going to fool Shield for long, but it makes them at least a little less conspicuous. Clint moves stiffly, limping a little, and when she asks him what happened he curtly tells her he took a slightly unplanned shortcut from a roof to an elevator by way of a sixteenth floor window. She's sure that's not all that happened to make him move like that, but she doesn't press.

A large chunk of Manhattan is still without power, and the streets are ghostly silent as they make their way south using alleys and dark backstreets. Dust and acrid smoke still hangs heavily in the air, and firefighters, police, military and EMT crews still work to free people from fallen debris, to get them out of smoke filled buildings and structurally unsound areas. Here and there bodies are laid out on the street, haphazardly covered with dusty blanket and jackets, and Natasha sees Clint's eyes slide over them before returning to picking his way through the debris on the street.

Natasha hears the distinct sound of quinjet engines approaching long before the aircraft glides through the deserted intersection a few blocks down, and she pulls Clint over a heap of rubble and in under an awning. He stumbles, his feet slipping on the shifting rubble, and she has to steady him as they wait for the jet to move on. They're out looking. No doubt there are people in cars and on foot, too. Good luck with that, she thinks wryly.

Natasha tries to estimate how far they've got left until they reach the destination she has in mind. A safehouse she keeps in Chelsea. She has always had backups for her backups. Some she shares with Clint, some she has kept for herself, and this situation proves why the latter is necessary, because there is no way of knowing how much Loki was able to glean from Clint's brain during the past three days. And if Loki saw their plans, what's to say he didn't share them with someone else? Every safehouse, every stash of weapon and cash, every check-in point they have set up jointly has to be considered compromised at this point.

When the jet is out of sight she heads back into the street again, but she immediately notes the lack of sound behind her. She turns and sees that Clint hasn't moved an inch.

"Let's go, Barton," she orders.

He still doesn't move.

"What are we doing, Nat?" There's a note in his tired voice that strokes Natasha the wrong way. It sounds too much like defeat.

"86ing," she tells him. She heads back and pulls him with her. There's no way she's going to stand here and wait for Shield's net to close around him.

"Nat—"

"Don't start," she warns.

"I should go back. You know I should. I should give myse—"

"No, you shouldn't," she snaps, because Shield will toss him in a holding cell. They will call it protective custody and proceed to pick him apart the moment they get their hands on him. She's scared that if she lets them have him now some of the already crumbling pieces will be too cracked, too damaged and broken to ever fit right again. So, no, he's not going back, she won't let him. Not before she has extracted a promise from Fury that the whole thing won't turn into a witch hunt, a WSC quest for a scapegoat. Magic and aliens and mind control are abstract concepts - a human target is so much easier to lock onto. She's not going to let them sacrifice him.

Clint sighs, but drops the subject and trails after her as she continues towards Chelsea. Natasha knows it's not because he agrees, he's just too tired to argue right now.

When they arrive at their destination she's relieved to see that the unassuming brick building is intact, as are most houses of the street. The power is out here, too, and Natasha spots the flickering of candles and flashlights in a few windows. She glances over her shoulder as she ushers Clint up the steps, looking for anyone who might be following them, but she sees nothing.

The small apartment is on the second floor, and Natasha spends a few minutes getting past the lock and the alarms. Her alarms have battery backups, and she doesn't particularly want to wake the entire block by setting them off.

Finally she hears the lock click, and she pushes it open and motions Clint to get inside. She follows him into the small hallway, closes the door and locks it behind them. When she turns Clint has stopped in the middle of the dark room that opens up from the hallway, and for a moment he looks lost, like he doesn't know what he's supposed to do.

"Here, let me take that," she says and holds her hand out for the collapsed bow in his hand.

He gives it to her without a word.

She puts it on the small table next to the door and takes his hand. "Come."

She tows him into the living room and gets him situated on the armrest of the couch. He sits there with his hands folded between his knees, watching her she collects candles and a flashlight. There's a blank disconnect in his eyes, like he's almost asleep. From the way Clint had looked when she got to him, there hadn't been much time for rest during these three days, so he's entitled to be tired. But she suspects another part of it is that he is disassociating a little, that everything is just too much for him right now.

And Natasha still has to break the news that Phil is dead.

She finds a flashlight, two stubby candles and two candle holders in a drawer. She lights the candles and takes them to the bathroom. She pulls out the first aid kit and puts it next to the candles on the counter.

"Take a shower if there's any water pressure left," she tells him when she gets back into the living room.

He gets to his feet with a quiet wince and disappears into the bathroom. She hears the shower start up. While he's in there she heads to the bedroom and makes the bed for him. She grabs a pillow and a blanket for herself. She digs out a few more candles, which she lights and sets around the room. She has just extinguished the last match when her knees suddenly go watery. She stumbles to the couch as the events of the day crowd back in. She remembers the noise of the battle in the streets, of people screaming, of Clint's explosive charge going off on the helicarrier. She remembers Fury's tinny voice over the comms, relaying the news about Phil. She remembers desperation as she ran from the Hulk.

And she remembers fear.

Fear for what whatever plan Loki hand in mind, for what he would do to Clint. Fear for herself, knowing that she might have to kill Clint if she was unable to subdue him or convince him to stand down. Fear that she'd be left without anyone to tether her to what little humanity had been left in her after the Red Room.

She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes and shakes her head sharply to silence the emotional response that wants to break out from under her control. Get a grip, Romanoff. You can crash later. Clint is your first priority tonight.

It takes her a few minutes to convince herself to get off the couch, but when Clint comes out of the bathroom with a towel around his hips and the first aid kit in his hand, she has herself under control. She fetches a bottle of water from the kitchen and cracks it open before handing it to him.

He drinks a few sips. "Thanks," he mumbles.

"There are a change of clothes for you in the closet," she tells him and nods towards the bedroom. Even the hidey-holes she keeps from Clint are stocked with basic supplies for him.

When he returns he's wearing sweatpants and holds a t-shirt in his hand. "I need your help." He angles his back so she can see the cuts and scrapes in the warm candle light. Some of them are weeping little rivulets of blood down his wet back.

Ah. The sixteenth floor shortcut.

None of them speak as she cleans him up and tapes some of the deeper cuts. The sound of wailing sirens in the distance isn't constant any longer, but every now and again they start up, and Natasha tries very hard to not think about how Phil would usually be in the middle of the rescue operation, planning, coordinating, making things happen. But this time he's not. He's lying in a morgue somewhere.

"What are you not telling me?"

She looks up at the sound of Clint's miserable voice and realizes that her hand is hovering in midair, unmoving. She dabs the disinfectant against the cut she had been working on and sees his muscles twitch at the sting. "I don't think you need stitches for any of these."

He catches her hand and twists so he can look at her. "Don't do that to me," he pleads. "Whatever it is you're not saying, tell me."

Natasha looks at his fingers around her wrist. Despite the shower he is still cold.

"Phil is dead."

She doesn't try to soften the blow, because she knows it wouldn't help. How could it, when one of the most important people in Clint's life – in her life - has been ripped away. Phil is gone. He's dead. They're on their own again.

Clint doesn't move, doesn't even react for a few seconds, he just stares at her like her words don't make sense, and they don't, do they? Phil is not supposed to be lying dead with a hole through his chest. _He's not._ Then Clint blinks, and Natasha watches the devastation hit.

He lets go of her hand and opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. A few seconds later he tries again. "How?"

"Loki. Stabbed him clear through the chest."

She watches him carefully for any sign that he's going to fall apart right there, and for a moment she thinks he will start to cry, but then he swallows and nods sharply and turns his back on her.

She finishes up with the last of his cuts and helps him with his shirt.

He doesn't move from the couch and Natasha sits down next to him. For a while she allows herself get lost in the flickering game of tag that's being played between the candle light and the shadows on the walls. Her world shrinks, turns into a bubble of space in which only she and Clint and silent, churning grief exist.

She doesn't know how long they've sat there when Clint finally moves, but the candles have grown significantly shorter.

He rolls his shoulders stiffly. "So what happens now?" he asks hoarsely.

"We stay under the radar." That's all she can offer, because she's too tired, too heartsick, too beat down to come up with a more detailed plan right now.

"For how long?"

"I don't know."

He nods and looks down at his hands. A moment later he gets to his feet. "I need to sleep," he says hollowly.

"I made the bed, it's all ready for you."

Without another word he walks to the bedroom and closes the door quietly behind him.

'* '* '*

Natasha has been sitting curled in up in the deep window sill for hours, eyes closed and listening to the wail of sirens that still hasn't died down. Every now and again the faint sound of military jets patrolling the New York City sky mixes with it. The power hasn't come back, but the sky to the north is still lit up from below, from the fires that still burn and the blinding floodlights that the numerous rescue teams have set up. She knows it's not over, that tragedies are still unfolding at this very moment. A lot of people are trapped, injured, dying, dead.

Dead.

Phil is dead.

She closes her eyes, pulls the blanket tighter around herself, but it does little to counteract the chill that's coming as much from the inside as it is the outside. Clint was the one who brought her in, but Phil was the one who let her stay. Who continued to let her stay. Once he had made up his mind about her, he had always been on her side, had always had her back. Even so it had taken years before she had been able to definitively put away the suspicion that he could turn on her at any moment, that she was just a means to some unknown end. But Phil had showed patience and compassion, had joined in Clint's quest to get her out into the 'normal' world, one that didn't consist solely of jobs and preparations for the next one. One of pizzas and hanging out and doing silly things just because they made her feel good. Of course she had indulged in some frivolous things before Shield, but it had always been tempered with the feeling that she was doing something forbidden, that it wasn't for her. Phil had taught her that she deserved it.

Clint helped her shed her Red Room persona, helped her create a structure around which to build something new. But if he provided the structure it was always Phil who had supplied the foundation, and truth is she's scared she might not be strong enough to maintain that foundation without him.

She wonders if this is the end of her Shield days. It might just be, because if they can't give Clint a fair chance, or if Clint decides he's done, well, it's always been a package deal with the two of them, so if he leaves so will she. She has always known it wouldn't last. Nothing lasts. It was one of the first lessons she learned in life, and she learned it well. Don't get attached. Don't settle down. Don't become predictable. But Phil had somehow managed to find a loophole in those rules of hers, had snuck under her skin and made her believe those things maybe weren't so bad.

Now she's paying the price for it.

She glances towards the closed bedroom. The urge to walk in there and slip into bed with him, to curl up against his side and hold on until her world settles down is almost painful. She shouldn't, he needs to sleep, but Natasha has always known she isn't a very considerate person so she leaves her perch and pads across the cold floor.

The door slides open on silent hinges. "Clint?"

She stands there with her hand on the knob and waits for him to react. It takes a lot longer than usual, but eventually she hears the rustle of sheets and blankets.

"You okay?" he mumbles hoarsely.

No. She's not.

"Can I sleep with you?" She hates the trembly uncertainty in her voice, but she needs the reassurance that he's okay with it, because even though he's never refused before, after all this she doesn't want to force her will on him. He's had enough of that in the past few days to last a lifetime.

Clint doesn't answer, and for a few long seconds she stands there feeling foolish, feeling like a frightened child asking to sleep in her parents' bed after waking from a nightmare. She rubs her eyes and wishes that she could wake from this one, the one in which Phil will never answer her call again, will never wait for them when they arrive back to base, will never be there to pick up their pieces. It makes her chest constrict with such force that her breath catches.

Then Clint scoots over and holds up the covers. She exhales slowly, trying to regain a measure of control before she pads across the floor and slides into the pocket of warmth next to him. He has turned away on his side. She's welcome, she always is, but it's clear he doesn't want to be touched tonight, and Natasha has to pull her arms in close to her body to keep from reaching out in the darkness.

She wants to, she wants to _so bad_ , but this barrier that he presents is something much more tangible than a closed door. So she doesn't, she just lies there and hears Clint breathing even out into sleep. It's so quick it feels like he's desperate to escape. After what he's been through, she doesn't blame him for wanting to leave reality behind, she really doesn't.

But _she_ is still here.

And being left behind hurts.

It's hard to cry silently when she's crumbling from the sheer ache of it in her chest, but she buries her face in the blanket and does the best she can to not wake Clint.

The End


End file.
